1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the configuration of computer systems into a rack for efficient use of space in a data center.
2. Description of the Related Art
A data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. It generally includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls (air conditioning, fire suppression, etc.), and special security devices. Datacenters concentrate large amounts of processing systems within a small area in order to provide an efficient and optimal environment to operate the systems. Power, cooling and other management services can be provided more efficiently in a datacenter than if the systems are decentralized.
Continuing demands for increasing processing system capacity require that the data center must be designed for efficient power management, thermal management, configurational flexibility, and maintenance. These competing design considerations have led to the development of numerous systems, but the most common of these systems include the use of racks that support large numbers of components and are arranged side by side in rows. In a typical data center, cold aisles supply chilled air to the front sides of two adjacent rows of racks and hot aisles exhaust warmed air from the back sides of two adjacent rows of racks. Alternating hot and cold aisles enable relatively efficient air flow management and cooling, while providing access aisles along the front and back of each row of racks to facilitate installation, reconfiguration and maintenance.
However, there remains a need for even more efficient rack systems that make more efficient use of the space in a given data center while still providing thermal management and configurational flexibility. It would be desirable to have a more efficient rack system that utilized many standardized components, such as motherboards, hard disk drives, and PCI cards. It would be even more desirable if the rack system increased the density of the processing system without overloading existing cooling systems and without complicating the configuration and reconfiguration of the components.